One week from today, I’ll be standing at the start of the New York City Marathon.
Of course I have a time goal. Of course I want race day to go well.
But sitting here with a week to go, I realized something: no matter what happens on November 1st, this has probably been the most enjoyable marathon journey I’ve had.
This will be my fifth marathon, and somehow the training for this one became about much more than just running 26.2 miles.
Want to follow along and cheer me on during the NYC Marathon?
The miles are in
Before I start second-guessing whether I should have squeezed in one more run, here’s what actually happened:
- ✅ 20-mile long run
- ✅ 16-mile long run
- ✅ 3 half marathons — including a PR
- ✅ Multiple double-digit runs
- ✅ 3 of 4 planned peak weeks around 26.2 miles
- ✅ Stayed healthy enough to get to taper
- ✅ Built confidence that wasn’t there at the beginning
Was it a perfect training cycle?
No.
But looking at that list, I feel pretty good about the work.
Learning when to trust the training
I think I trained better for this marathon.
Not perfectly. But more consistently, and with a little more understanding of when to push and when to leave things alone.
That second part is harder than it sounds.
There is always another run you could do. Another 10-miler that might make you feel more prepared. Another chance to prove to yourself that you can handle the distance.
But at some point, another long run is mostly about calming the voice in your head.
With a week to go, I’m trying to trust the work already done.
Apparently, marathon number five is teaching me that knowing when to stop adding miles is also part of training.
My goal
I’ve been torn between going out there and just having fun, and really going for my best run.
After this training cycle and a 1:55 half-marathon PR, part of me feels ready to try a 9:30-per-mile pace.
Then I remember my previous marathons.
They haven’t always gone the way I hoped, and I want to bring a little of that experience to this start line too. Feeling ready and putting together 26.2 miles are two different things.
And this is New York — 26.2 miles through all five boroughs. I’m expecting this to be the toughest marathon course I’ve taken on so far, which gives me another reason to respect the distance and keep my goal realistic.
So I’m setting my goal at 4 hours and 22 minutes — about 10 minutes per mile.
It gives me something concrete to work toward, while keeping my expectations grounded in more than one good half marathon.
Of course I want to have fun. I want to take in New York, enjoy the crowds, listen to my music, and feel my friends cheering me on.
I also want to give this an honest effort and finish knowing I gave myself a chance to run well.
I’m hoping there’s room for both.
The playlist became part of the journey
Then there’s the music.
What started as finding bhajans for a long race turned into an entire experiment: matching beats to my feet, moving songs around, saving favorites for tired legs, and giving ChatGPT breathless feedback in the middle of a run.
I wrote about that in “My New Running Buddy Has No Feet”.
Somewhere along the way, building the playlist became something I looked forward to as much as testing it.
Would this song work after ten miles? Was that opening too slow? Which one would give me a push when I really needed it?
And at Rockfest, when I needed one last effort near the finish, one of those songs actually helped me find it.
So I’m taking more than a collection of songs to New York. I’m taking a playlist that has already been out there with me, one long run at a time.
Apparently, running wasn’t keeping me busy enough
Somewhere during all these long runs, I decided that apparently training for a marathon wasn’t keeping me busy enough. 😄
So I started building RunBuddy.
The ideas came from the things I kept running into while running.
Pace math sounds simple when you’re sitting on the couch. Several miles into a run, I would much rather have someone tell me how I’m doing.
How much time do I have in the bank?
If I’m behind, what would it take to catch up?
Is the goal still realistic?
And then there was the other part of race day I’ve always loved: having my wife, my kids and friends along for the ride, even when they’re nowhere near the course.
I wanted one place where they could follow along and send encouragement, without me juggling different chats while trying to run a marathon.
That became RunBuddy.
At Rockfest, it worked… almost. There were rough edges, including a start-time mistake that made the early pace updates rather less encouraging than I had hoped. 😄
But taking something I had built out into a real race was its own kind of thrill.
Now I get to take it onto the NYC course on November 1st.
Training for this marathon has meant running, experimenting, building, testing, and occasionally wondering why I gave myself another project.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.
What I’m taking to the start line
I’m taking stronger legs than I had a few months ago.
I’m taking a 1:55:13 half-marathon PR that I honestly didn’t think I would ever see.
I’m taking a playlist built one long run at a time.
I’m taking RunBuddy — hopefully slightly less “almost” than it was at Rockfest. 😄
And most importantly, I’m taking the confidence that I did the work.
I know that doesn’t guarantee a particular finish time. I’ve run enough marathons to know race day can have its own ideas.
But it feels good to be here.
Come along for the last 26.2
And this is where I could use your help.
If you’ve been following this journey — whether you’ve run with me, encouraged me, read these posts, or simply wondered why a grown man keeps voluntarily running 20 miles on Sunday mornings — I’d love to have you with me for the last 26.2.
RunBuddy will let a small group of friends follow along, see how I’m doing, and send messages while I’m on the course.
If you’d like to be part of that group on November 1st, send me a message. I’d love to take you along.
The miles are in. The hard work is done.
I don’t know exactly what November 1st will bring.
But I do know this: I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the road that got me here.
And maybe that’s the part of the marathon I’ll remember the most.
NYC, I think I’m ready. 🗽🏃♂️